Horizon: Zero Dawn

I'm not seeing any comparisons to Far Cry except the crafting and skill tree.

Not saying you are like this Thimmy but most people who say that I feel like are desperate for comparison and looking at it from a very narrow point of view.

The quests, characters, story, world building and enemy design far out does those games anyway.

I'm not surprised the gameplay is great tbh, everything pre release suggested it would.

What has surprised me is how good the story is, how much better the side quests are than I expected they would be and how much lore there is if you want to find it.

I said pre release that I don't care about the story and side quests as long as it's fun to play and I stand by that but both have been far better than I imagined.

wasn't that into being a female character for an open world lengthy game (yeah I'm one of those guys) but when I heard Chloe's voice :banderas:

That's another thing lol, I love her character and as it got further I have got even more invested into her character as the depth has opened up.

Fantastic performance from Chloe tbh (don't know her real name lol)

Turned it on 3 and a half hours ago with plans on doing the main quest.

Never actually does it

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:I'm not seeing any comparisons to Far Cry except the crafting and skill tree.

Not saying you are like this Thimmy but most people who say that I feel like are desperate for comparison and looking at it from a very narrow point of view.

The quests, characters, story, world building and enemy design far out does those games anyway.

I'd prefer not to be able to compare it to any other games, but the game was inspired by several other titles, so it's only natural for people to notice certain similarities. I don't believe the concept is different enough from Far Cry to rule out any comparisons. There are plenty of similarities, and the developers have openly admitted to being inspired by said game franchise, among others. I don't know why the crafting and the skill tree are the only things you've noticed that the game has in common with Far Cry, but I suppose we all experience games in different ways. The open world sometimes reminds me of a rich man's Far Cry 4, but I can understand if you disagree with me on that particular point.

Some of the animations also remind me of Far Cry 4, which I personally think is positive because it focuses less on realism and more on smooth and responsive movement. I know some critics would've preferred if it had looked more realistic, but I disagree. Apart from both games being open world and with RPG elements, there are generally quite a few things that add up to a product that feels enough like Far Cry that I sometimes get a feeling of Deja Vu while I'm playing it. In fact, I'd completely forgotten about Far Cry, up until a few days ago

I really enjoy Horizon Zero Dawn. It's a fun game and it looks amazing. What it does, it does pretty well in some areas, and extraordinarily well in others. It's one of the most polished games I've ever played. Like RG mentioned, the gameplay is smooth and I like how responsive the controls are. There are a few odd features that are unique to the game, and there are plenty of things that the game does better than other, similar games. There's tons of things that I could give the game praise for. It's undoubtedly a great title that has a lot of potential as a future series and addition to the already rich list of Playstation exclusives, but if I could change one thing about Horizon Zero Dawn, I would tell the development team to expand more on their creative ideas, because I think the game really succeeds in the areas where it does something completely, or relatively different from other games.

I think we all can appreciate that it took inspiration from The Witcher 3 in designing it's side quests, or Far Cry 4's watchtowers when designing the tallnecks, and that it's such a great game despite being Guerilla's first take on an open world RPG. However, no game is perfect. And I don't expect them to be perfect, but I think it's more interesting to read other peoples' observations regarding a game's shortcomings or things that could be improved upon, as opposed to praise that, most of the time, are things I've already recognized and appreciated. So, that's what I sometimes choose to focus on when talking about games on here. In other words, I don't think the familiar elements of the game are negative, but I think the game would've been even better if they had focused more on distinguishing themselves from other games, rather than adopting different features and improving on them. With that being said, I completely get that adding your own twist to already established features saves a lot of development time and is a lot less risky than introducing something that hasn't been seen before - which could potentially mean make or break for an ambitious project like Horizon ZD.

I appreciate the well thought out response.

But yes i don't really see the Far Cry comparisons from a gameplay and world POV, i have said before but i feel like the gameplay has more comparisons with a more refined and smooth Tomb Raider and Witcher tbh.

Far Cry is a fine game to be compared to, i just don't agree with the comparison is all. Not like it's trash and should be avoided at all costs but i just don't think the comparison fits.

I agree there's faults ( like there is with every game) i would like the melee combat to be better, more customization with the gear, maybe some Witcher Gear like quests for high end stuff, cut down on the RNG on loot a bit, improve the human AI ( although i enjoy the Bandit Camps) and some Quality of Life stuff with resource management.

Some of this could be patched in though really.

Also i feel like you are understating their own ideas tbh, there's a lot there as well as the inspirations from other games.

The story feels very unique in the video game space, there's a shit tonnes of lore for a newly established franchise, obviously the machines are fantastically well designed in both look and variation of attacks they have as well their general intelligence.

The whole play between stone age type tribal warfare, futuristic machines and the past being such an confusion to everyone is such an interesting and unique premise which so far the writing of the game carries out fantastically well.

While they have been inspired by many games, like all games are i feel like there's more than enough unique ideas in there that make it feel like it's own thing.

had something annoying happen to me, I travelled to a settlement and there was a woman that wasn't there before who gave me a quest, so I got it but I tried taking a shortcut down a cliff and died, loaded game up again and she isn't there anymore and won't come back even if I leave and warp. Can't get the quest smh.

Don't you have a previous save? Unreal luck you are having with glitches btw, I haven't really had any apart from getting stuck in-between two rocks hiding from some glinthawks lol.

Although the game did crash once.

wasn't a glitch, found it under errands, thought it was under side quest lol. But the NPC wasn't there when I reloaded so I thought it was glitched. Only had a couple of glitches, mostly getting stuck under rocks etc.

I got that roll skill but I can't notice a difference when I hold the roll dodge button or just tap it tbh

not even touching quests today, mopping up collectibles I missed. Kept skipping the flowers. Already came across a couple of well hidden settlements with quests I completely missed lol.

There is a difference, but honestly I barely use it.

The standard roll does the job personally, also in the heat of the moment I pretty much never remember to hold instead of tap lol.

I never touched the stuff on the map btw lol, it's like Witcher 3 where unless I come across it just exploring I won't bother.

Probably loads of stuff I haven't done, done like 3 corrupted zones lol.

Feels like I'm near the end of the story, will probably finish it tomorrow if not tonight.

Got a lot of stuff on the map and those hunter trails to do though so I might do that first.

roughly how long would you say the story missions take from when you get to Meridian to where you are now?

I think I might try to platinum it

I've got like 90% of the collectibles already..finishing those up tonight, I also just got gold medals on all of the first hunter trial, gonna try to do all of those..then play through the story

just wondering how long that'll take me since I haven't even gone to Meridian yet, annoyed to see I missed one of the power cells and can't get it until basically late game now smh.

I got to Meridian like 40 hours ago lol, but I played the game differently to you.

What powercell did you miss? If it's the two I think you can go back to get them.

yeah but have there been a lot of main quests since or a few big ones?

It was the second power cell, apparently you can't return until late game  

location:

Yeah there's a lot of quests and side quests.

Also you can go back there because I did lol.

really? will try it in a bit, power cell location guide was telling me it was missable until late game

Worked for me anyway, that one and the...

Spoiler:

Do you guys use Metal Roach to travel or just on foot?

Mainly on foot tbh, I just enjoy walking around the world and it's not that huge really.

Plus I'd probably run from every fight then.

Yea same here.

Level 13 now

I've used a mount for all of 2 minutes lmao. Got the skill to call it to you now and override for long periods so might start using it, I find getting around on foot fast enough and controls better.

Level 13 I'm lvl 34 atm

Mole where is that couldron quest you were talking about? yet to find it.

they're the weird glyph symbols on the map